Italian
artist of the futurist movement, Umberto Boccioni’s goal was to capture
movement in his work.
In this piece called
‘Dynamism of a Cyclist’, Boccioni captured a cyclist in motion. The futurist movement, which originated in the early 20th century in Italy, was very much about, as the name implies, the future. As Marinetti metntions in his 'Futurist Manifesto', he dislikes things that are old and admired new concepts of technology and speed. This love for speed an be seen across the board of futurist works, this could very well be attributed to the progress made in technology. Trains, cars and airplanes were all coming to be and changed the worlds view of what speed really is.
Naturally, I chose to discuss movement as the theme for this work. I’d like to point out that when first glancing over this work, it looks like a hazy mess of colour. Like your eye doesn't quite know what to make of it. The longer you look at it, the more it appears to make sense. The forms in this piece have all been abstracted to imply that the cyclist is being caught in a very fast motion. While impressionism was all about capturing a moment in time, futurist works like this are all about capturing moments in time in one piece.
Naturally, I chose to discuss movement as the theme for this work. I’d like to point out that when first glancing over this work, it looks like a hazy mess of colour. Like your eye doesn't quite know what to make of it. The longer you look at it, the more it appears to make sense. The forms in this piece have all been abstracted to imply that the cyclist is being caught in a very fast motion. While impressionism was all about capturing a moment in time, futurist works like this are all about capturing moments in time in one piece.
We can see that the cyclist
has been reduced to basic shapes, as if the speed at which he is travelling has
removed the details of his being. If we look to the bottom left of the piece,
we can note something very interesting. The artist has managed to create the
wheel of the bicycle by simply adapting his brush strokes accordingly to imply
rotational movement.
The use of line in
this piece is also very interesting. In contrast to the various explosions of
colour happening in this piece, that give it that hazy effect that is often
attributed to things in motion, we can also see harsh black lines, cutting
across sections of the work. The basic rule of the formal elements of art tell
us that diagonal lines often imply movement and dynamism so there is no real
question why the artist used them here. These lines, in my eyes, add to the
streamlined nature of the cyclist in motion and add to the overall sense of
speed going on in this piece.
With the talk of
speed, I also feel obliged to mention the theme of time in this piece, because
what is speed if not the play of distance with time. Time is captured in this
piece through the use of the disjointed look of the forms. The artist gives the
impression that many moments in time are being captured in this one image.
References:
britannica.com [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/70885/Umberto-Boccioni][Last accessed on 28th October 2013]
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